


At the Edge of the Known Universe

by calrissian18



Series: Mating Games: Round 2 [8]
Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gore (Light), M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-27 02:43:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1712033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calrissian18/pseuds/calrissian18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles Stilinski leans over, all awkward limbs and gangly body – a mess of movement that no one would ever mistake for graceful.  It makes the precision way he tilts towards Whit get written off as a fidgety kid who can’t sit still by the Peacekeepers.</p><p>Written for the mating_games Bonus Challenge 4: Crossover/Fusion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At the Edge of the Known Universe

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very, _very_ loose fusion with the Hunger Games universe. I hesitate to even list it among the fandoms but credit where credit is due. It uses the framework of the Capitol, Districts, Peacekeepers, etc. but does not take place in District 12 and follows none of the plot, only relies on the set-up. My headcanon sets it in District 9, whose specialty is grains, but aside from sharing a common vocabulary in some places, there is very little overlap with the books and there are far more original elements added in than canon Hunger Games ones. Basically: **Don't go in expecting a Hunger Games retelling with Teen Wolf characters because you are going to be sorely disappointed.**
> 
> Also, though this is explained in the text, I'll simply reiterate - there is a hybrid language used on rare occasion of Spanish and English. Though sometimes it is straight up one or the other, there are times when it's a mix of the two. Just so you don't think I'm typo-ing all over the place. At the very least, _those_ ones are purposeful.
> 
> Oh, also, Omega here does not mean self-slicking, baby-making, heat-cycling werewolfy things because _what_? And: no.
> 
>  
> 
> ETA: I even talked about how I was going to make this chaptered and NOT a series with chosenfire and then was apparently too tired to post it up right. Friggin' dumb. I can't believe it took me this long to remember it is _not supposed to be a series_. I didn't even remember to add it to the Mating Games one. God, I am a mess. This does not bode well for my proofing abilities last night.

Stiles Stilinski leans over, all awkward limbs and gangly body – a mess of movement that no one would ever mistake for graceful.  It makes the precision way he tilts towards Whit get written off as a fidgety kid who can’t sit still by the Peacekeepers.

Whit cants his head slightly, the only person who truly knows what Stiles is capable of, who knows this is purposeful.

Stiles drops his voice but knows Whit can hear him now he has his ear.  “The Oasis?”

Whit rolls his eyes, exasperation and frustration rolling off of him in equal measure.  His permanent scowl lines deepen.  He’s only seventeen, a year older than Stiles, but you would think he was forty with just how set those lines are.  “Will you go anyway?” he asks, in that way that doesn’t really move his lips.

Stiles has tried to mimic the movements but his mouth is too wide, too expressive.  Whit had called it ‘jubilant’ once with that permanent down twist to his own.  Stiles fumbles that wide mouth into a grin and leans away.

From Whit’s huff, it’s answer enough.

Stiles doesn’t even look to confirm that Whit will follow.  If Stiles goes, so will Whit.  Likely snarling and gnashing his teeth, but he’ll go.  They’ve had each other for a long time now, since the age of seven when Whit had intervened and stopped Clobber from pounding on him.  Stiles still doesn’t know the kid’s real name, only that he was built like a mountain, eleven-years-old and after Stiles for stepping on his heel.  Stiles had been bracing himself to take the pounding when Whit had jabbed Clobber in the neck with a pen, casual as you please.  Clobber had bled like a stuck pig and the Peacekeepers had come and given Whit the concussion of a lifetime.  Stiles had refused to leave his side in the nurse’s station.  They’d been inseparable ever since.

Whit doesn’t have any family left.  They were killed working the grain fields with Stiles’ mamá when the sandstorm hit.  It ravaged half the District before it moved on, left countless people dead since they lived on a desert plain and almost all the work – at least what could support irrigation agriculture – was done outside.  Only one had mattered to Stiles and his papá.  Three had crippled Whit, left him an orphan of the District, not a position anyone wanted to be in.  He only has one year left to weather, thank the Capitol.

Stiles frowns a little guiltily.  Whit should stay out of trouble, keep his head down, stay alive for one more year and leave the Schism – which was the derogatory name the Peacekeepers used to refer to their District.  It’d been picked up by the locals though, lost its punch, just became another word for the same thing.  Whit’s supposed to head for the Greater Plain, past the Capitol, if it even exists and isn’t a children’s story.  But Stiles is physically incapable of doing the same and Whit is physically incapable of letting him run off and get himself killed.

Whit nudges Stiles’ elbow and the frown lightens instantly, which was undoubtedly Whit’s intention.  His movement’s are much more suspect, measured as they always are, and a Peacekeeper’s eyes flash over to them beneath his visor.

Stiles leans away from Whit, propping his chin up on his hand and letting out a bored sigh while he refocuses on the director, who continues describing the process of mining the crystal gypsum found on the outer borders.  Stiles knows he’ll have to learn one day, even if today isn’t that day.  He’s slated for mining or agriculture because there’s nothing else on offer in the Schism.  He thinks he’ll hate either, the first because there’s no room for clumsiness or intelligence, which are really all he has going for him, the latter because it’d be like working in his mamá’s coffin.

His papaíto works the mine so that’s likely where he’ll go.  He’s pulled away from the gloom settling over his mood that comes with imagining his future by the shrill whistle of the miners switching shifts.  Even though that’s a good distance away, they hear it clearly across the thin desert air.  It also signals end of lesson and Stiles dumps all he’s dragged out into his bag.

Whit pulls his sack over his shoulder and Stiles doesn’t remember him taking out so much as a charcoal black or a single sheet of paper to even pretend to note down the director’s words.  That’s not like him, always eager to look cooperative with the Peacekeepers and, by extension, the Capitol.  He doesn’t show, and hasn’t shown, the slightest inkling of anything that could so much as be interpreted as dissent.

Maybe the effort is too much today.  Stiles has his own days where putting one foot in front of the other seems like an impossible task.  Though he’s seemed preoccupied all morning if Stiles thinks about it.  He nudges Whit’s shoulder as they pass the Peacekeeper stationed outside the Esquela.  “S’all ben?”

A half a year ago, when the Capitol had sent its delegates down to update them about the other Districts and their meager rations, the Greater and Lesser Plains, the Capitol, and the Outlying Lands, they’d all got a taste of the full Standard English – which Stiles had only ever heard on those old discs his papaíto kept around.  It sounded unnecessarily formal and rigid to him.  Everyone in the Schism spoke Hybrid, or ’brid – those who could speak anyway – which was a mix of Standard and Old Spanish.  Even the Peacekeepers in their District knew it, though they didn’t call it Hybrid.  They called it Bastard and laughed at the way everything was spelled because literacy was, and always had been, a luxury in the Schism and was when the two languages merged.  Not the same for the Peacekeepers, who often grew up in the Capitol or one of the nicer Districts before being shipped off, where Esquela – though Stiles felt sure they called it something else – was mandatory for all children ages 4-18.

Stiles and Whit got instrucción as compensation from the Capitol for their dead parents.

Whit waves him away with a flap of his hand.  “’M fine,” he says with his usual scowl in place.  “I’ve got to head back.  Don’t do anything stupid mientras.”

Back, never ‘home.’  Whit hasn’t had that since his whole family was wiped out in a whirl of dirt and wind.  Stiles salutes exaggeratedly.  Whit can be such a mother hen sometimes.  He hitches his bag up higher, taking off through town while Whit takes the long way around towards the more destitute side, the Capitol housing.

The shopfronts are still open, trying to entice in the Esquela kids and the miners coming off shift.  Stiles nods at a few of the owners, Hobbs’ gray bushy eyebrows taking special notice of him and forming a deep ‘V’ as if willing him home.  Stiles scurries past him with a quick grin while Hobbs rolls his eyes before welcoming a customer with a cracked headlamp.  Hobbs can fix just about anything and, even for a man over sixty, he makes a pretty easy living bartering for his goods.

Stiles’ papá is always saying he hopes he has it figured out half as well as Hobbs by the time he’s in his twilight years.  Stiles is sure he will, he’s doing well enough now.  They haven’t gone hungry, haven’t even lost power in years and Stiles knows that’s about the most expensive to keep going in the Schism.  He knows Whit can’t say the same.

The main town is small, maybe twenty shops on either side of a dirt path that would serve as a road if anyone could afford cars in the Schism.  A strong wind blows up orange dust into Stiles’ eyes and he pulls his collar up over his mouth and nose, already stretched from doing the same so many times before.  All his shirts are the same in that way.

It settles barely a minute later and Stiles takes off down for the quarry before it can kick up again.  The houses settled around it are made of the same sturdy wood gotten from District 7 that the shops are constructed from.  Stiles runs by all of them, not even sure if Heather sees his nod of acknowledgement as he blurs past her on her porch.  His papá will just be going down into the mines so he’s got the house to himself but he doesn’t want to be late to meet Whit.

He slams the door so hard behind him on his tear that it rattles.  He sprints into his room and pulls up the floorboard to get at the knife Whit had gotten for him two years ago for District Day.  Stiles strongly suspects he’d bought it off Hobbs, though Stiles has no idea what he might have traded him for it.  Weapons are strictly forbidden in all the Districts so far as Stiles understands it but luckily he’s always dressed in layers.

He tucks it up against his hip bone in the waistband of his jeans, his plaid overshirt and t-shirt doing all they can to hide the handle.  He’s hardly had much cause to use it but the Oasis is bordered on all sides by danger.  The Peacekeepers of the Schism, the Alpha, Beta and Omega territory.  Whit doesn’t think they really exist, just horror stories about genetic abortions made by the Capitol to fuel rebellion, not real but inflammatory still.  Stiles shrugs and figures better safe than sorry.

He pauses, about to move the floorboard back, when he snatches up the thin box of fireplace matches in there too and shoves them in his back pocket.  The little cubby is empty all over again, save for a creased photo of his mamá.  He fits the floorboard back, his hiding place blending in seamlessly.

He locks the door behind him and runs down the length of the fence, a Peacekeeper stationed at every post.  He’s still running when he sees Whit waiting for him at one of the ones they’ve altered over the years since they found the Oasis, he jerks his chin over Stiles’ shoulder.  Erica is behind him, the collar of this particular shirt stretched so wide that the front of it is folded between her impressive cleavage.  She smiles at the Peacekeeper at the fencepost nearest them.

Whit knows her from the Capitol housing, another orphan of the District, and she’s a perfect distraction.  She’s tempting but still has an innocence around the pout of her mouth that men of all ages can’t help but drool over.  Stiles has sometimes even wondered if Whit’s in that category but he’s so surly it’s hard to imagine him drooling over anyone.

They wait until the guard’s turned to Erica completely, undoubtedly watching the flutter of her long eyelashes before Whit curls up the fence, cut from the sharp edge of Stiles’ knife years ago and they crawl under one after the other.  Stiles digs the point of the fence back into the packed dirt and they keep their steps light until they’re beyond the tree line.

The threat of the Alphas, Betas and Omegas is enough to keep most of the citizens of the Schism happily inside the fence.  Truthfully, the Peacekeepers are more there to guard against ideas than anyone with escapist notions.

Stiles nudges Whit in the shoulder when they’re far enough into the heart of the woods that stretch out on either side of them.  Stiles could remember that it had taken  _months_  for the novelty to wear off,  _real_  trees that towered over them, not the skimpy little things that sometimes grew in the Schism.  Stiles had overheard two of the Peacekeepers talking about it once, they called them Half Trees, because apparently they didn’t compare to the trees in the Greater Plain, or even the ones in the Capitol.  Whit stumbles a bit before he regains his feet.  It throws Stiles.  “Where is your head today, soromp?”

“Shut it,” Whit says back but there’s no heat to it, like he’s heard the words but hasn’t properly digested them.

Stiles smells the lake long before they reach it.  Whit had taught him how to swim when they’d first discovered the Oasis, it had been a long and arduous task but Whit had only gotten fed up with him a handful of times.  Stiles still doesn’t have the full story on how he knew in the first place.  He tramples through the underbrush, inhaling deep lungfuls as he goes.  The air is nothing like this in the Schism.

He’s keen to get to the water now and plunge in.  For their District, it’s not a particularly hot day but Stiles still isn’t going to pass up the opportunity.  It’s in sight when his overshirt gets caught on something.  He pulls but the fabric doesn’t give, holding taut.  He turns around to break the branch of whatever tree’s got hold of him when he sees it’s Whit’s fingers.  Stiles perks a questioning brow, looking between Whit’s face and his grip.

Whit shrugs and lets his hand fall.  He shoves it into his pocket and pulls out a napkin that’s wrapped around something, the smell coming from it faintly sweet.  “The cave first.”  He opens the napkin and shows Stiles a fistful of dried apricots.

Stiles blinks down at them, they’re not  _that_  rare in the Schism but they’re far beyond what Whit’s meager stipend from the Capitol could purchase.  He would’ve had to save it up for ages.  Stiles suddenly wonders if the date’s important somehow.  May 29th.  He can’t place it.

He pulls up some ginger to offset the taste of the apricots and he even finds some dasheen roots to give the meal some substance.  He piles it in the mouth of their cave, Whit already sitting down, head between his hands and apricots spread out on the napkin between his feet.

“Are you dying, Whit?”  It spills out past Stiles’ lips before the thought even registers.  They have a joking twist to them but now that he’s heard the words aloud – from his own mouth even – he’s struck by the horror of it.  “Don’t tell me, if that’s it.  Whit, don’t say, I don’t want to know.”

A corner of Whit’s mouth twitches up, which is as close as he ever comes to a smile.  “I’m not dying, soromp.  Sit down.”

Stiles stares at him, bug-eyed.  “You swear?”  He’s only allowed Whit one answer to give and he does with an indulgent nod.

Whit ruffles the back of his short blond hair.  It’s long at the top, comes out over his forehead almost like a cliff’s ledge.  The girls seem to like it well enough, though that might have to do with Whit’s high cheekbones, plump lips and classic handsomeness.  He looks better than most the men speaking Standard on papaíto’s disks, Stiles thinks without embarrassment.  All the girls in Esquela look at Whit.  He never looks back.

Stiles doesn’t think he’s ever seen Whit look so uncomfortable before.  He’s the very definition of cool.  Stiles’ fingers twitch on the thigh of his jeans, looking at the apricots.  He hasn’t had one since last summer and he’s hungry for it but he doesn’t think he should start in until Whit’s drawn first blood.

Whit rubs his elbow, snorts.  “Go ahead then.  I know you want them.  S’why I got them.”

Stiles almost asks how he could possibly have afforded them but bites his tongue, literally, to stop himself.  Whit never talks about how he gets notes and he only scowls more when Stiles asks and clams up for hours.  Stiles picks up the apricot and pops it happily behind his lips.

Whit’s lip twitches up again, watching him savor it.

Stiles knows some of his enjoyment comes from being able to fulfill the role of provider again.  Even before Whit’s parents died, he’d been the one to fend for his little brother, Crevan – from fighting off the other boys in the quarry to bringing him lunch and dinner to giving him his baths and doing his washing.  They’d been close and Whit had cared for him in a way Stiles isn’t sure he’ll ever manage again.  Stiles knows their relationship is only an echo of Whit and Crevan’s.

It was a freak thing that Crevan had been in the fields that day.  Stiles thought Whit still considered it punishment for not being enough for Crevan, for him having to go to their parents while his stomach growled and Whit was down in the mines.  He never thought he was enough anymore but he was family to Stiles, maybe the bit that mattered most.

Stiles’ papá had lost his way after his mamá died, started drinking more and communicating less.  Stiles felt lonelier than he ever had during that first year.  And then Whit.  A brother right there for the taking and Stiles had, snatched him up before anyone else could.

Sometimes Stiles wonders if they would even be friends if they met now rather than when they were kids.  Whit’s so cold to anyone new and his face looks mean, like he’d bite before he barked.  And no one wants to befriend Stiles, the lanky kid who always seems to draw attention to himself when everyone only wants to fade into the background.

“Eat, Linny,” Whit says, lips hitched up.

Stiles’ ears tint pink at the nickname.  Whit never calls him it in front of anyone else, thankfully.  He doesn’t need another thing to make him a target and Whit knows it.  He pops two apricots in his mouth and then starts in on the ginger.

Whit picks up an apricot and turns it over between his fingers.

Stiles frowns, watching him play with the food rather than eat it.  “You didn’t poison them, no?”

Whit rolls his eyes and tosses the apricot into his mouth, making a point to chomp his teeth down on it and let the sweetness sink into his tongue.

Stiles eats most of everything himself but he leaves five of the apricots on the napkin and folds it back up.

“Finish them,” Whit grunts, pushing the napkin towards Stiles with his boot.

Stiles pats his belly, full of ginger and dasheen, cut to perfection with his knife, and Whit’s apricots.  “We should save them,” Stiles says.  He stands, lifts his arms over his head and stretches out the weird tenseness of his muscles from hunching over their makeshift banquet.

Whit stands too, watches as Stiles leans against the wall of the cave.  He looks out into the forest.

“I want to lay on my back in the lake and float, feeling so heavy,” Stiles says.  He starts to pull off his overshirt when Whit’s hand on his forearm stops him.  “What is it?”

Whit takes a step closer, stepping right on a ginger root without a bit of regret.  “I think I can talk Satiquoy into giving me a chance to work the mines again as early as next summer.”

Whit will barely be aged out of Esquela by then and-and he hates the mines and he’s going to go out to the Greater Plains!  That’s the plan.  That’s always  _been_  the plan.  Whit was never going to stay here, leaving the Schism as soon as he could was the plan.  “What are you talking about?”

“I could maybe build up a nest egg.”  He shrugs.

The words are making no sense to Stiles.  Whit’s worth so much more than the mines and he’s worked so hard to get out of the Schism.  Stiles has made mistakes left and right, called attention to himself when he shouldn’t have and is always causing trouble – the Peacekeepers knows his name for fuck’s sake, his  _real_ one – but Whit’s better than that.  He always has been.  “You’re not staying.  You’re getting out.  You’re going to the Greater Plains like we’ve always planned!”

Whit shakes his head.  “When you age out, we’ll go together.”

“Whit, they’re never going to let me leave here and you know it!  I’m not a model citizen, certainly not the pride of my District.  I’ve got no promise to boost me there.  You need to get out while you can.”  Even if they did let Stiles out, his papá would never leave the Schism.  He’s settled here, he met Stiles’ mamá here.  This is his forever, which means it’s Stiles’ too.

“I’m not going without you,” Whit says.  It’s that quiet, firm way he gets when in the midst of an argument that he intends to win.

“I don’t understand why you’re doing this!  Why are you doing this?”  Stiles is working himself into a rage, everything he’s known for nearly a decade shattering right in front of him.  Whit’s supposed to get out, he’s meant to, Stiles can feel it.  “You were always supposed to leave when you could, you were never supposed to want the Schism!”

Whit actually growls at Stiles.  “I  _don’t_  want the Schism.”  He grabs Stiles by the shoulder and shoves him into the cave wall.  The rock bites into Stiles’ back, causing knots and aches to sprout up every place he connects with it.  Whit leans in, his face as close as Stiles can ever remember.  “I want  _you_.”

“Jax,” falls out of his mouth before he can think better of it.  It’s a nickname that’s long dead, buried with Whit’s brother because it had been Crevan’s first and it hurt Whit to hear now.

Whit’s expression grows pained, as predicted, and he flinches as if Stiles has struck him.

“I’m not your brother,” Stiles says softly.  “You’re my family, yeah.  But I can take care of myself because you taught me how, gave me tools,” Stiles taps the knife in his waistband, “convinced me I was smart enough to do it, you don’t have to waste away with me here.”

Whit looks a mix of angry and desperate.  “I know you’re not—I don’t confuse that.  Ever.  Linny, I—” but he cuts himself off by mashing their lips together.

Stiles gasps in surprise, Whit’s hands still on his shoulders, clutching tight.  Whit tilts his head, trying to get deeper.  It’s more of an assault than a kiss, Whit trying to convince him with an action that’s more powerful and more thorough than his words had been.  It’s rough, brutal almost, Whit’s tongue thrusting into Stiles’ open mouth, his teeth working as much as his lips, the taste of apricots thick between them.

Stiles tangles his fingers in the sides of Whit’s t-shirt and pushes him back.  This is Whit’s first kiss, Stiles feels sure he would have heard about it if it hadn’t been, and it’s certainly his own.  He doesn’t think either of them are ace at it, his lips still stinging from Whit’s teeth.

Whit finally backs away a little and he’s breathing hard, chest heaving over Stiles’.  He licks his lower lip as though tasting Stiles on it.

Stiles stares straight into his eyes, which he’s never been able to pin a color to, though he’s tried several.  Blue.  Green.  Grey.  They’re too mercurial, like Whit, to call any one thing.  His eyes drop to Whit’s lips, redder than he’s ever seen them except for maybe when they’d been gorging themselves on the strawberries Stiles’ papá had splurged for two summers ago.  He doesn’t know what to make of the way his heart is trying to thud its way out of the cage of his ribs.

Whit has always been his best friend, his brother, his family.  Stiles has never thought of him as anything other than everything to him.  Did that include this?  He feels sure he’s never thought of Whit this way, though green/blue/grey eyes had sometimes slipped into his fantasies late at night when his hand slipped beneath his sheets, but never any more than that.

Stiles suspects, the way Whit’s fingers are trembling on his shoulders, he can’t define them any better than Stiles can.

“I won’t walk away from you.”  His breaths come out in puffs, gust across wet lips.  “You can’t ask me to, not when you wouldn’t do the same.”

Stiles blinks.  He’s never thought of it from Whit’s perspective.  This has always been the plan, they’d dreamt it up as soon as they were old enough to dream up wild escapes.  Stiles hasn’t questioned it since.  It’s clear Whit’s been doing nothing but for a while now.  “I don’t know what I’d do,” Stiles admits.

“The reckless thing, Linny.”  He huffs out a laugh.  “It’s all you know how to do.”

Stiles’ smile is tentative.  “Maybe.”  His fingers are still curled into Whit’s sides, Whit’s into his shoulders.  The thought of letting go of him, of stepping out of this moment and maybe finding their friendship sliced to tatters on the other side of it is too frightening to contemplate.  Stiles noses into Whit’s cheek, lets his lips brush the high arch of it.

Whit turns his head, catches Stiles’ mouth before he can withdraw, the awkward touch apparently enough of an acceptance for him.  This time it’s not wild in its intensity.  Whit kisses him slow, lingering, their tongues sliding together, their affection feeding into each other’s, their mouths slotting together.  This time Whit kisses Stiles like he’s been planning it for years.

The thought makes Stiles stagger away, into the rock behind him.  His fingers have clenched in so much harder than before and he makes himself release Whit’s shirt, straightening out stiff joints.

Whit carefully lets him go too.  He clears his throat, stares at the square pocket of Stiles’ overshirt.  “I won’t go.  You wouldn’t, so you can’t hold me to a pact we made when I was nine.”

Stiles’ lips tip into a smirk.  “We swore that in blood, Whit.”  Stiles still has the scar on his palm from it.  Well.  It could be from any of the promises they’ve made to each other over the years, the ones that needed blood to stick.

“I don’t care if we swore it in diamonds, Linny.”  There’s a teasing lilt to it but Stiles can hear the argument right under the surface and Stiles knows he’s not going to be able to convince him to leave any more than Whit would be able to convince Stiles to.

Stiles stares at him, frowning.  Whit was supposed to be his way of getting out too and now he’s trapped them both here.  Stiles tries to affix a smile to his lips, he knows Whit doesn’t buy it but it’s easier for them both to pretend.  “Can we go for a swim now before we have to get back inside the fence?”

Whit’s lips twitch and he reaches halfway down his back and pulls off his shirt.

Stiles kicks off his shoes, curls his socks up in the toes of them, and then steps out of his jeans and underwear.  He and Whit have stripped down in front of each other thousands of times before but it’s never held any weight before.  Now he’s careful to keep his eyes averted even though he knows Whit’s body nearly as well as his own.  Whit’s not doing the same, refusing to let things be off between them.  Stiles loves him a little more for it.

He shrugs out of his overshirt and then drags off his t-shirt.  His thumb brushes the spider-webbing scar tissue over his hip.  Whit has a mark just like it over his shoulder.  They’d been young when they got them, eleven, and run out farther over the hard packed dirt than they ever had before, socked feet slapping against the desert ground.  The scorprán had risen out of the sand itself, the biggest Stiles had ever seen up to that point, and towered over them and the slim trees around them.

It’d stung fast.  Whit must have gotten the full dose of the venom because, while Stiles had been disoriented, he hadn’t been poisoned.  He’d dragged Whit back to town and sat with him while the antivenin went to work.  Whit had been unconscious for four days and Stiles had sat by his bedside as often as his papaíto would let him.

Whit glances over at him, shrugging the naked shoulder with the old wound like he knows Stiles is reliving how he got it.  He smiles softly and Stiles looks away.

He wonders if he should have seen this coming.  He and Whit have always been close but he’s never had any other friendships to compare that to, never known if it was closer than normal.  He remembers the last time they were in the Oasis, redressing after they’d dried out on the rocks, the sun not as hot through the foliage.  Whit’s hands had gone around his neck, uncurling the collar of his overshirt while he bit his lip, still twitched up.  He’d set it right and said, “Imperfectly perfecto all over again, Lin.”

There’d been something soft, waiting in his eyes that Stiles guesses isn’t waiting anymore.

Stiles picks his way through the woods over to the lake, not bothering to watch his step as his feet are already tough from running over the plains after Whit or chasing baby scorpráns as big as his fist until dusk.  No one guards the Oasis because there’s no overlap in the Peacekeepers.  They have set places in their sections of the District – Alpha, Beta, Omega (if they even exist) and Schism – and they can’t cross over territory.  Bordered on all sides by Capitol rule but free of it in their center oasis.   This land belongs to no one and nothing aside from Stiles and Whit.

Stiles’ toes find wet mud and he grins as the lake’s edge follows seconds later.  He dives beneath the surface, dried leaves and twigs parting for him.  It’s not great form and the water hits his chest with a wet slap.  He can hear Whit laughing from land when he resurfaces, breaths coming a bit more tightly.

Whit wades in rather than dives and Stiles does as he promised and flips over onto his back to float in the semi-cool water.  He closes his eyes, a burst of orange beneath his eyelids while the sun warms his cheeks.  The water barely rocks so Whit must have decided to lounge about too.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been laying like that when something smacks down next to him and water splashes his face and shoulder.  He peeks open one eye and finds Whit’s curved, pleased mouth.  The ass.

“You haven’t moved in a half hour, perezozy.”  He pokes Stiles in the shoulder and it’s enough to unbalance him.

He flips off his back and splashes water in Whit’s face.  He squints up at the sky through the canopy and sees how low the sun is sitting.  He sighs.  “Volemos?”

Whit yawns, nods.

On shore, Stiles uses his overshirt as a towel before handing it off to Whit too.  They dress in a lazy sort of silence and there’s no discomfort between them like Stiles had expected. He ties the damp cloth around his waist and is pulling on his shoes when something loud rumbles through the forest, the ground shaking beneath them.  He stumbles into Whit, who manages to keep them both upright.

“What was—”

“Stiles.”  Whit’s jaw is clenched unholy tight.  “Get your shoes on.”

Stiles looks up into his indecisively colored eyes and feels a shiver snake down his back at the apprehension in them.  Whit’s gaze is focused on something high over Stiles’ shoulder.  Stiles whirls around and feels his face go slack.  Above the tree line are three identical thick plumes of black smoke, like whatever’s on fire is still burning.  Stiles slams his foot almost painfully into his shoe and Whit grabs his elbow and  _tugs_  almost instantly.

It’s a feeling more than concrete knowledge that has them running.  But the sounds follow quickly, make the hair that’s standing up on their arms and the back of their necks almost precognitive.  Whatever’s coming out of the forest is inhumanly fast and gaining on them.  Snapped branches, rustling leaves and odd, sharp noises reach out for them, scraping against their spines.

Whit tumbles over in a blur.  At first, Stiles thinks he’s tripped but then he sees the dark thing on top of him, the red.  Stiles freezes and his gaze goes unfocused and, for a moment, he can’t tell where the blood is coming from.  He stumbles back, picks up the heaviest branch he can lay hands on and swings it at the shape on top of Whit.

The branch breaks and it howls and Stiles can see its face now.  It’s not human, covered in hair so thick it can only be a pelt, but comfortable on two legs rather than four.  Its eyes are a brilliant red and it has a snout and claws and fangs and it looks vaguely wolfish.  If wolves were demonic.

It rises up slowly, shaking off the blow, and Stiles feels his heart jump into his throat.  He backs up a step but the thing is faster, barrels down on him.  Stiles’ head hits the ground hard and something sharp sinks into his stomach.  He hisses against the pain and tries to twist away from its mouth, kicking out with his legs as much as he can.  Drool drips down onto his cheek and he gets a knee up into the thing’s hip but it does nothing to slow it down.  It’s not negligently stronger than him, it’s _impossibly_  stronger than him and this isn’t a fight Stiles  _can_  win.  He’s going to die here, beneath a feral monster while his best friend bleeds out next to him.

He’s waiting for the inevitable crunch of bone between strong jaws when the weight abruptly leaves him.  Something’s collided with it.  Stiles sits up too fast and his head feels like it  _swoops_.  He pauses, trying to shake off the dizziness, and his vision comes into focus on the back of a pale blue shirt.  It’s stretched tight across human skin, strong shoulders.  The man it belongs to is blocking the creature’s view of Stiles.

The two run at each other and Stiles hastily and messily crab walks over to Whit, trying to stay low.  He’d seen blood but he hasn’t seen the wound, doesn’t know how bad it is.  It’s Whit’s upper arm and shoulder and it’s not just bloody, it’s bitten, little puncture wounds etched into skin.  Stiles thanks the Capitol that Whit isn’t conscious for any of this because it looks scarily deep.

Stiles unties his overshirt from around his waist, wraps it around the ball of Whit’s shoulder, loops it under his armpit, and looks up in time to see the man who’d saved him get pinned to a tree, claws around his throat.  And Stiles realizes it isn’t a man at all.  Not a human one at least.  His face is distorted, eyes red and mouth full of fangs.  He has his own set of claws and longer sideburns.  He manages to bend at the knees, get his feet flat against the trunk and launches them both backwards.

They tumble over one another but the more human one gets the upper hand.  He moves almost faster than Stiles’ eyes can track, straddling the monster and tearing into its throat with his sharp teeth.

Stiles looks away, stomach roiling, and focuses on putting pressure on Whit’s wound.  He sees the victor stand on sneakered feet but he doesn’t want to see his mouth dripping blood.  Stiles can feel the inhuman eyes boring into the side of his head but he can’t look up.

It means they both miss that the other one isn’t dead.  It launches itself at the half-wolf first, enough to get him out of the way and then it rams into Stiles’ chest.  Stiles falls back, the wind rushing out of his lungs.  Much like the half-wolf hadn’t managed to kill it, it hadn’t managed to knock the half-wolf out and he comes charging back in.

Stiles scrambles away as far as he can but he’s still close enough to hear the snap of the monster’s neck when the half-wolf twists its head around.  He lets the defeated wolf drop, and it does, limp and lifeless.

The half-wolf’s chest is heaving and he rises slowly, looking almost like an avenging angel.  His red eyes are fixed on Stiles and they’re staring at one another when the animalistic features start sinking back into human skin.  His forehead smoothes, sideburns shrink, claws rounding into short nails, and fangs retracting into blunt human teeth.  His front two are kind of bunny-ish in the mouth of a wolf.  Stiles swallows down a bout of wild laughter.

The man stalks over, mouth and chin still stained red, and Stiles shrinks back.  For all he knows, this was a fight for the right to the meal of him and Whit and Stiles can barely believe that it was just a few minutes ago that he’d felt safe here.

He stops a foot away and holds out a hand, palm up, to Stiles.

Whatever else, the man did just save Stiles’ and Whit’s lives.  Stiles eyes the hand warily but grabs it all the same, lets the man help him to his feet with all the ease of picking up a leaf.  He’s intimidatingly, worryingly strong and Stiles finds himself increasingly off put by it.  He has no idea what to say to this man, doesn’t even know for sure that they speak the same language—that the half-wolf speaks anything  _at all_.  He opens his mouth and is cut off by Whit starting to convulse.

Stiles is by his side in an instant, terrified out of his skull.  The half-wolf hasn’t followed and Stiles turns to look back at him.  He’s staring mutedly at the dead one.  Stiles is holding Whit by his uninjured shoulder and his elbow to try to keep him from ripping anything further.  He grits his teeth, forces out, “Do you know what’s happening to him?”

The half-wolf looks up and his eyes aren’t red anymore but they’re an indecipherable color just like Whit’s.  Green.  Blue.  Hazel.  He nods slightly.  “He’s turning.”  His voice isn’t half as deep as Stiles had expected it to be.

“Into what?”

The man takes a step closer and Stiles blinks and really looks at him.  He looks normal now, a little gruff and mean, muscular in a way even Whit isn’t.  He’s wearing plain clothes of the same color and material, pale blue, linen shirt and drawstring pants.  He’s unshaven and his scruff is as dark as his hair.  His cheeks are slanted, his eyebrows bushy and he looks vaguely dangerous.

Though maybe that’s because Stiles just watched him kill someo—some _thing_.

“They call us Lycanellas,” he says with a shrug, as though the term means nothing to him.

Stiles swallows, trying to wrap his head around the wild stories in the Schism actually being true.  “You said—” Stiles tips his head in the direction of the dead… Lycanella.  “‘Us’?  You’re the same species?”  Whit’s body stills under his fierce grip and Stiles breathes a sigh of relief.  He’s pale and clammy but no longer shaking violently.  Stiles hopes that’s a good thing.  All he know is he’s never been so scared in his life; it’s the scorprán times a hundred.  Stiles is the one who does the reckless thing.  Whit is the one who knows what to do when the reckless thing goes south.  Stiles can’t lose him.  He doesn’t think he can survive it.

The guy nods.  “It’s just shifted all the way.”

“Why didn’t you?” Stiles asks, because the questions keep him from focusing on  _how_  still Whit is now.  His chest is continuing to rise and fall under Stiles’ lax palm and that’s enough for right now.

“It’s harder to hold onto yourself, going all the way over.”  His lip raises and he kicks the dead wolf in the shoulder.  “It’s not like this though.  Only some of them look like that.  I just look like a bigger version of a real wolf.”

Stiles’ gaze slides uneasily back towards Whit.  “Will he be like that?”  He looks back up.  “Or like you?”  If this is really happening, if Whit’s turning into one of these—these  _Lycanella_ , then no matter how he turns out, Stiles is going to have to know how to deal with him.  And he’s not going to pretend like the latter wouldn’t be a million times easier.

He shrugs.  “I don’t know what makes them like that.  They just  _are_.  It’s like they’ve forgotten they ever had a human part.  The only way they can think is through instinct.”

Stiles grips tight to Whit’s shoulder.  He’s not conscious but it’s reassuring to know he’s there anyway.  “Where did you come from?”

The man looks back over his shoulder, into the woods.  “Alpha territory.”

Stiles shivers.  “How did you get out?”

“There was an explosion.  Three of them in Alpha, Beta, Omega—one right after another.  The fences went down and then all the doors slid open simultaneously.  Some of the wolves, the more wild ones, stayed to get revenge,” the man’s face darkens before he moves on, “but most of us ran.”

Stiles nods, not knowing what to do with the information about a place that isn’t even supposed to exist.  He gestures to Whit.  “How long before he wakes?”

The man shakes his head.

Stiles bites his lip, trying to get an arm under Whit to lift him.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the man asks in clear surprise and slight remonstrance.

Stiles glares.  “Well I can’t just leave him here, can I?”  He struggles to stand with Whit’s weight dragging him down.  He throws a calculating look over to the guy.  “I wouldn’t say no to some help.”

The man shakes his head again.  “If he survives then he’ll be fine here.”

Stiles lowers Whit back down gently, realizing he’ll never be able to carry him himself.  He pretends the  _if_  doesn’t strike him at his core.  He stalks off into the denser trees.

The half-wolf follows him.  “What are you doing now?”

Stiles shrugs, determined.  “I’m going to find some healthy branches, make a stretcher so I can drag him.”

The shadow dogging Stiles’ steps is quiet for a long moment before he ventures, “You’re really not going to leave him?”  He sounds amazed by it.

Stiles shakes his head tightly, testing one of the long branches but it’s too dead and snaps easily.  The action stretches his stomach and he winces, remembering the claws sinking into him now that he’s had some time to settle Whit’s predicament into his head.  He pulls up his shirt slightly.  It’s not deep or even bleeding that badly anymore, just poorly positioned and stinging.

“Fine,” the half-wolf says mulishly, “I’ll help you carry him west.”

Stiles narrows his eyes at the man.  “I’m going north.  Back to the Schism.”

He shakes his head.  “There’s no point.”

Stiles can feel his temper growing shorter.  “I have supplies back there and he needs that wound tended to.”

“It’ll heal.”

“I’m  _going_  back to the Schism,” Stiles insists.  “My papá’s there.  Everything I know is there.”

The half-wolf backs up a step, expression closing off.  “I’m going west,” he says.

Stiles moves closer, realizing the chances of him getting Whit back on his own are slim to none.  “Please.  Help me get him to the Schism and then you can go west.”  He starts to shake his head and Stiles cuts it off with a strident, “ _Please_.”

His shoulders slump slightly and he looks agonized.  He gives Stiles a long look before finally deciding tightly, “Okay.”  He catches Stiles by the sleeve of his shirt as he twirls back towards Whit.  “You can’t go back through the fence though.  There’ll be some that ran that way—some like that one.”  He looks back in the direction of the dead wolf with a snarl.  “It’s too open, too unprotected.”

Stiles swallows, tipping his head and conceding the point.  He and Whit had explored every bit of the Oasis when they first found it, he knows his way around it.  “Keep walking along the fence and it ends once you reach the mountains,” Stiles tells him.  It’s a hell of an elevation climb and the—now abandoned—mountain pass is narrow, and there’s a long way up before you can even begin to work your way down.  Stiles doesn’t want to be too blunt about what they’re up against however, doesn’t want his only help to abandon him.  He sugarcoats it some.  “It’ll be a thousand times more difficult, winding our way back down to the plains,” Stiles admits, “but we won’t run into anything except for maybe a few scorpráns.”  But Stiles has his matchbox so he can protect against that well enough.

He nods, head tilting slightly at the mention of scorpráns and it’s clear he’s not familiar with the term, or possibly the creature altogether.

They lift Whit between them and it takes them a while to find a rhythm with their steps.  When Stiles is no longer panting, and he’s figured out when he needs to breathe and where, he looks over at the man who’s decided to help him for reasons Stiles doesn’t know.  “I’m Stiles,” he says, tipping his head towards Whit where he’s hanging limply between them.  “That’s Whit.  He’s normally chattier.”  He frowns, considering.  “Well, no.  He isn’t.  But he’s not nearly as much of a burden usually.”

The guy snorts.  “Derek,” he returns.

They don’t talk again.  Stiles has no idea what to say to him and Derek seems comfortable enough with a silence only broken by grunts and groans.  It doesn’t take Stiles long to realize Derek is doing the lion’s share of the work and Stiles’ suspicions about his motives get more intense.

The silence and the paranoia are driving him more than a little mad, and he finds himself babbling as they reach the sparser area where the forest starts the transition into the barrenness of the desert.  His every sentence is split with panting but he’s still understandable at least.  “My papaíto works the mines in the Schism, mining the gypsum.  He was down there when everything happened.  I wonder if they even know anything’s off yet a world below this one, you know?”

Derek doesn’t say anything back and Stiles shifts his palm up under Whit’s armpit, pushing him up from where he’s slipped down.  His arm is limp around Stiles’ neck and Stiles can feel sweat and dirt coating his back and the sides of his face.  He’s hot and uncomfortable and sore and Derek isn’t even showing it a quarter as much.

“Have you ever been to the Schism?” Stiles asks him.

Derek shakes his head, puffs out, “At least I don’t think so.  I don’t remember anything before the Facility.”

Stiles wants to ask if he _is_  the result of genetic experimentation like people in the Schism have always said but he thinks it would be rude and Derek is helping him without any reason to.  Stiles doesn’t want to inadvertently run him off.  It doesn’t sound good though, whatever this ‘Facility’ is.

He searches around for something safe to talk about and hitches Whit up again.  Which is it of course.  Stiles spares his unconscious best friend a glance and then finds himself talking about the first time they found the Oasis, the more interesting things they learned in Esquela, the two times he and Whit had walked this same path and almost everything in between.  He tells Derek about Clobber, about Crevan and his mamá, and Derek finally says, “He’s family.”  As though he’s just understood why Stiles wouldn’t leave Whit behind.

Stiles nods, swallowing down more anxious stories of their shared childhood and, for a second, panic tries to eat him from the inside out before he forces it back like he’s been doing since Whit fell under the weight of the Lycanella.

They fall into another silence but this one doesn’t set Stiles’ nerves on edge as much as the last.

The mountain pass is narrower than Stiles remembers it being.  They can’t walk three men abreast and have to turn sideways.  From what Stiles can recall of the last time he’d traversed this with Whit, it’s a climb for about fifteen-twenty minutes and then a quick drop down.  It passes his house along the quarry, meaning they’ll have to double back, but no one comes out this far on the plains so it’s worth the safety.

The ledge is wide enough that Stiles can walk two paces before he reaches the edge.  Not that he is ever,  _ever_  going to make certain of that.  He’s not big on heights and he’s glad Derek’s taken the lead.  Whit had always reached behind, held onto Stiles’ belt loop or shirtfront when they’d done this.  Their steps are carefully measured, far more so than they had been in the Oasis and Whit is held more firmly between them.  The fall isn’t something any one of them is likely to survive and the path is winding, tapering in every so often, so caution is the color of the day.  They haven’t been walking long when all their caution is made moot and the path they’re on trembles.  Derek freezes, cocking his head to the side.  “Another?” he says.

Stiles knows he means explosion but he doesn’t think that’s it.  He looks up.  The light’s pale, fading fast.  He can’t find any evidence of a slide but he still doesn’t believe it’s an explosion either.  There’s something too familiar about the vibration, like he’s felt it before today.  The mountain is just as much sand as it is rock and he figures it out a few seconds too late.  Why the rumble seems isolated to them, why he knows it.  He pulls Whit away from Derek, pushes him down behind the both of them and tries to reach Derek too but the scorprán is already shaking off the dirt, rising out of the pass ahead of them.

The stinger comes down hard into Derek’s chest, right over his heart.  It should kill him instantly but he’s still gasping out pained, strangled breaths a moment later.

Stiles fumbles into his back pocket, strikes the first match he can grab onto against the side of his sneaker, along the rubber sole.  It takes four tries to get it to light and then he thrusts the bobbing flame out towards the scorprán.  It rears back, loses its footing and tumbles down over the side.  It’s an impressively long fall and too dark towards the bottom to see it hit.

The whole thing takes seconds.

Stiles pushes Derek up against the mountain side, pulls off his own shoe and sock.  He slides on his damp sock like a glove, wraps his cloth-covered hand around the sting, yanks it out and throws it over the side.  He turns the sock inside out and tugs it back on.  He picks up Derek’s forearm, helps him press his own hand over the gouge in his chest.  “I can’t believe you’re still alive.”  His voice is  _shaking_  with adrenaline.  Just the force of the blow should have stopped Derek’s heart.

Derek’s teeth are gritted and he looks like he’s in  _agony_.  “Increased strength, healing ability.”  He blinks, eyes fluttering separately.  “I think the poison’s still working though.”

Stiles bites his lip, looks around.  There’s scrub brush along the path, which means it’ll burn easy but it’ll also burn  _fast_.  He sets the matchbox in Derek’s lap, says, “They don’t like fire.”  Derek’s processing the venom faster than anyone Stiles has ever seen.  It seems the increased healing means it hastens everything, including spreading the poison.  Already the black lines of dying tissue are spreading out from the wound.  “I’m going to get you as much of the scrub brush as I can.  There’s antivenin in town.  I’ll be quick.”

Derek’s eyes goes wide and it’s clear he doesn’t want to be left alone, but there’s nothing else for it.

Stiles places a hand on his shoulder, squeezes.  “Look after Whit.”  He stares into Derek’s green/blue/hazel eyes, holding his pained gaze.  “I promise I’ll be back.”

Derek nods once, tight.

The scrub brush up ahead are tiny little sprouts of bushes and that’ll never be enough to keep a fire burning while he’s gone.  Finally Stiles comes up on a big one, the trunk of it growing out of the side of the mountain and as thick as his bicep.  He uses the knife Whit gave him to cut it down.  It nearly unbalances him and he has a panicked moment of his heel tilting over the edge before he regains his equilibrium.

He drops it all between Derek and Whit.  He uses rocks and sand to build a makeshift fire pit, digs his heel into hard packed dirt and tries to make the center of it into a basin as much as he can, but there’s just as much stone as sand.  He starts the fire for them, lays Whit out on his back and brushes sweaty tendrils of hair off his forehead.  He’s cool to the touch but sweating all over.  Stiles presses his mouth to Whit’s ear, just firm pressure for a moment before he says throatily, just for him, “You’re the one who insisted you weren’t leaving, gilipole.  I’m holding you to it.”

He pulls away, steps over Derek with a nod.  Their gazes hold for a moment, Derek’s pinched slightly and Stiles’ as open as he can make it, before Stiles turns and runs down the path.  Night is falling fast but Stiles knows the plains in the dark as well as he does in the light.  He and Whit, they’ve run it too many times.  He’s kept six matches for himself in case of scorpráns but he doesn’t need them for the illumination.  All he has to do is reach the bottom before the sun completely drops down past the horizon and he can make it.

He runs without looking over the sides.  If he does, he’ll work himself into a panic attack.  He reminds himself over and over of Whit and Derek waiting for him every time fear creeps up on him and tries to make him slow.  They both make for an impressively powerful motivator.

He makes it to the bottom with light to spare, about two minutes' worth, and then he’s sprinting across the cracked dirt.  He sees no scorpráns but his head is so fuzzy he’s not sure he  _would_ , even if they were there.  His muscles are sore, weak and  _stringy_ , like they’re not getting enough oxygen, but he can’t slow down.  He almost tears up when he sees his house, the sloping, boring  _home_  that he loves as much as Whit or his papá.

He doesn’t see it until he’s halfway up the porch, dark as it is.  The split in the door, the way it’s been kicked in.  Stiles’ heart jumps into his throat and he eases past it carefully.

The place is as destroyed as it could be while still standing.  Everything’s broken, splintered,  _ransacked_.  He runs to his papá’s bedroom.  The mattress has tears in it that look remarkably like claws but there’s no blood.  None.  Stiles is sure of it, even in the dark.  He turns on the lamp on his papá’s night table and opens the first drawer.  The framed picture of him and his mamá is gone, and only one person would benefit from that.  In its place is a note with seven words on it in very familiar, if shaky, handwriting.

_Stiles -_

_Stay safe_. _I will find you_.

Stiles feels his eyes well.  He fights it back, folds it up and shoves it into his front pocket.  He redirects with almost military precision into his own bedroom and opens his closet.  He grabs three of his heaviest shirts and puts on two of them, the other he ties around his waist.  The bare bones first aid kit is still there in the bottom corner.  It’ll help Whit but not Derek.  For that, Stiles will have to go into town to the apothecary to get the antivenin.

He swallows apprehensively at just the thought, almost missing the quick blur of shadow in his periphery.  He drops the kit, spins around just in time to get caught in the chest by a half-shifted wolf like Derek had been when Stiles first met him.

Its eyes are electric blue.

It snarls, snaps its jaws and nearly catches Stiles’ shoulder in its mouth before Stiles manages to jerk it away.  He twists, kicks it in the thigh and scrambles back, diving for the kit.  The thing catches his foot, pulls him back and Stiles scrabbles against the floorboards, nails bending like they might tear off altogether.  He manages a sharp kick to the thing’s cheek but it’s not enough to break its grip, though it is enough take the pressure off his nails.

He flops onto his back, grabbing at his own hip.  The thing lunges forward just as Stiles stabs up with his knife.  He catches it low in the stomach and drags up.  Blood pours down over him like he’s just plunged into a pool of it, entrails slippery against his skin.  He pushes the thing off with trembling limbs, turns onto his side and throws up.

He strips as quickly as he can, not looking at it.  Its face has smoothed back into something human, vulnerable, and Stiles beats back a few more dry heaves.

His extra shirts aren’t as heavy but they’ll do.  He pulls on a new t-shirt, two overshirts, ties the other around his waist.  He’s stuck in the jeans and sneakers.  These are the only pants that still fit him after that last growth spurt and he only has the one pair of shoes.  He changes his socks though.

He spins back around and realizes he’s going to have to move it.  It’s fallen right over the loose floorboard, the picture of Stiles’ mamá and he's not leaving that for anything.  He rolls it across the floor, hampered by the leg of the bed so much that he nearly falls over the thing.  He twitches away a few times, cowardly, when he can’t tell if it’s him moving it that’s made it shift or some internal force.

He gets it off the spot of floor he needs to reach before long, finds the picture unbloodied and shoves it into his clean (first) shirt pocket.

He picks up the first aid kit, stops in the bathroom so he can pick up a towel and try to twist the blood from his jeans off into it.  It’s no longer wet, now just a heavy dampness.  He eats a few saltines from the kitchen, trying to settle his stomach and his nerves, before leaving with the kit in hand.

The small blazes from town are burning stark against the night sky.  If his house is bad, it’s nothing compared to what’s happened in the center of the District.  Whole stores are collapsed, the wood jagged and purposeless, but thankfully the apothecary still seems mostly intact, even if there’s glass everywhere and nearly all the shelves are upended and turned on their sides.  The antivenin is under the counter even more thankfully.  Stiles grabs three of the thin vials and shoves them into his outer shirt pocket, buttoning it back up.

He walks out into the street and is about to start running—as soon as his heart starts beating again at least—when he hears a weak, gurgled, “ _Stiles_.”

Stiles’ blood runs cold.  His only thought is:  _papaíto_.

He whirls around, unable to make out the person slumped in the doorway across the way.  He approaches carefully, hair raised on every inch of his skin, when he sees him.

 _Hobbs_.

“Oh my God,” Stiles drops down next to him, not even sure where to put his hands first.  He’s sliced all over and aspirating his own blood.

“ _Stiles_ ,” he says again, choking it out, and Stiles’ eyes are wet.

“It’s okay,” he babbles, “it’s okay.”  He presses his hands against his sticky shirtfront, trying futilely to hold him together.  He watches Hobbs’ mouth yo-yo, form his name once more and then still.

Stiles lets out a hitched sob.  He’d known Hobbs all his life, been chased out of his shop more times than he could count, sent home with whatever he’d needed despite his inability to trade or pay and given IOUs Hobbs new he could never repay.

And now he’s dead.  A good man cut down by those things, by whomever had let them out.  Stiles tightens his jaw.  It’s not fair to think of them as wild creatures though.  Derek had helped him right along.  Derek, who’s dying for him up on a mountain ledge.

Stiles casts his gaze into the shop over Hobbs’ still shoulder but he wouldn’t know what to do with half of what he found there anyway.  He’s got a knife, the antivenin, the first aid kit.  Derek has his weapons built in and Whit’s not even conscious.

Besides, anything else might weigh him down, make him that much slower.

He stands, tries to close Hobbs’ eyelids.  They won’t stay down so Stiles offers him a single nod before he’s running back across the plains.  Once he's away from town, he can see the fire burning up on the cliffside even though it’s going to be a while before he reaches it.  The wind is remarkably cold against his face and it’s a long time before he realizes it’s because his cheeks are wet.

It takes him almost half an hour to reach Derek and Whit.

Derek’s breaths are shallow and his eyes don’t open, even when Stiles kneels down in front of him.  His hand has slumped off his chest where it was keeping pressure on the sting.  He’s covered in black spiderwebbing veins—it’s already reached his shoulders, down his arms and his hands, halfway up his neck—and Stiles wonders if he’ll scar like he and Whit did or if he’ll heal those.

He tips Derek’s head back, pulls his chin down with his thumb until Derek’s mouth is open.  He sets the mouth of the vial on his lower lip and tilts it carefully.  This close to Derek, Stiles can truly appreciate how handsome he is and it’s such an inappropriate thought to be having that it almost forces a laugh out of him.  When the liquid’s pooled in Derek's mouth, he rubs two fingers along Derek’s throat until he swallows.

Stiles stands up from his crouch, throws another bit of scrub brush on the dwindling flames and rolls up Whit’s sleeve.  The bite is pulsing slightly but it doesn’t look any worse.  On the flip side of that, it doesn’t look any better.  Stiles sterilizes it, wraps it in gauze and ties it off.  He takes out the vials, sets them by his foot, and shrugs off the extra shirt so he can ease Whit’s arms into it.  He’ll save the one around his waist for Derek.  This one is warm from his body heat and Whit’s still too cold.

“Stiles?”

Derek’s voice sounds gummy and Stiles turns to him instantly.  Already the veins are gone, no scars left behind, and Stiles feels his jaw drop.  He stands and Derek jerks upright.

His eyes flash red and he looks like he’s about to try to stand.  Stiles scrambles over to him, pushes him back down before he can stumble over the edge.  There’s something dark and dangerous in his tone when he speaks, though it’s edged with a strange bit of fear.  “What the hell happened to you?”

Stiles’ brow furrows in confusion before he remembers, looking down at himself.  It’s dry now but it’s clear he was soaked in blood at one point.  “Nothing,” he says, gruff and final, fingers clenched tight at his sides as the smooth, baby face of the dead man— _thing_ —comes back into focus.  “It’s not mine.”

“Stiles,” Derek starts guardedly, expression tense yet somehow remorseful.

Stiles shakes his head sharply.  He sits down next to Derek and he thinks they’re both listening to Whit’s steady breathing.  After a minute or so, he unties the shirt from around his waist and hands it over to Derek.

Derek accepts it, surprised.  “Thank you,” he says, strangely careful with the words.  Like he’s never handled them before.  He pulls it on, looking a little more relaxed.

Stiles pulls in his legs, rubs his hands up and down his calves, glad his jeans weren’t made tacky by the blood.  He rests the flat of his cheek on his knee.  The adrenaline and terror is flooding out of him in waves and he’s exhausted and sore all over but he can’t sleep, not until he knows Whit’s going to be okay.  “Is it true, what they say in the Schism?  That you’re the result of genetic experimentation?”  Apparently he’s too tired to bite that question back any longer.

Derek is quiet for a moment, but not like he’s angry, more like he’s considering.  “I don’t know.  I was born into this but my parents could have been—” he stops, shrugs, “I mean, I don’t know them.  They could have been anyone or anything.”

“I’m sorry,” Stiles says thickly.

Derek shrugs again.  “I’ve never known anything else.”

“What was the Facility like?” Stiles asks, eyelids incredibly heavy and consciousness slipping away.

Derek’s jaw works for a moment and Stiles just barely hears him spit, word venomous, “Hell.”

* * *

“Shit, Stiles.”  His shoulder gets jostled more and more intensely.  He resurfaces slowly but finally bursts into wakefulness when Derek digs his fingernails into his bicep and says in a low tone, “I think he’s waking up.”

Stiles startles upright, nearly falling over with how fast he stands.  He’s light-headed for half a second before he shakes himself out of it and stumbles over to Whit’s side.  He’s letting out heavy, huffing breaths, eyes squeezed shut tight.  Stiles leans over him, says softly, “Whit?”

Golden eyes pop open and Whit’s lip raises, showing off a hint of fang.  His gaze zeroes in on Stiles, pupils dilating, and then he’s  _lunging_  for him.  He hits Stiles hard, rolls them until he’s sitting astride Stiles’ hips, Stiles’ head inches from the flames.

“Whit, it’s me—It’s Stiles,” he says quickly, swallowing hard to work past the tightness in his throat.

Whit’s growling in a way Stiles has never heard a human do, the sound rumbling up from his chest, and he looks wild.  There’s no recognition in his eyes.

Stiles reaches up to touch his cheek, refusing to believe that Whit’s just  _gone_ , but Whit catches his wrist in his jaws before he can meet it.   _Fuck_.  “Whit,  _think_ ," he insists, voice shaky, "it’s me.  It’s Linny.”

The mouth withdraws, then the weight.  There’s a brief flicker between gold and blue/green/grey and then Whit cringes like he’s been burned.  Derek helps Stiles up in the brief moment of calm, at his back in an instant and steadier than he has any right to be.  He stands with his chest pressed up against Stiles’ shoulder in an undeniable show of solidarity.

Whit doesn’t seem to register Derek at all though.  His eyes flick between Stiles and the ground, back and forth, a seemingly endless circuit.  They’re starting to ring gold again and he roars, pivots and throws himself over the side.

Stiles hasn’t realized he’s moved forward until he feels Derek’s hands clench around his middle and hears his stretched,  _panicked_  voice saying, “Stiles,  _stop_.   _Stiles_ , please, you have to stop.”

He scrabbles for the cliff because Whit wasn’t looking at the ground, he was looking over the edge.  And Stiles could have stopped him, could have changed his mind if only he’d realized.  “Let go of me!” he screams, trying to twist out of Derek’s grip, scraping his nails down his hands and forearms in an effort to break free.

“No,” Derek growls.  “Not until you calm down.”

Stiles doesn’t.  He’s frantic to get to the edge, unable to believe what he just witnessed.  That Whit had tried to kill him, that he’d killed himself instead.  He won’t believe it.  He won’t.  He’s still asleep and Whit is breathing deep feet from him and safe.

“Stiles, stop moving.  Stiles, if you would just—” Derek claps a clawed hand over his mouth.  Stiles twists around to glare back at him only to find his head canted curiously, clearly listening to something down below.  “I hear rustling, movement,” he says quietly.  He looks into Stiles’ wide eyes as the fight abruptly goes out of him.  “I don’t think he’s dead.”

Stiles slumps back against Derek’s strong chest, arms still around his waist and tears of relief slip out from the corners of his eyes.  He’s still so exhausted, so lost and confused, so different from the boy he was that very morning.  But Whit’s alive.  Whit’s fucking alive.  It’s the only thing that matters anymore.  “Let’s go,” he says tiredly.

Derek goggles at him.  “Go?  Go where?”

“Go get him,” Stiles says, as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world.  Because, to him, it is.  Of course he’s going to get Whit.  There was never another option.

Derek snatches up his forearm as he moves to pass, grip painful.  He’s looking at Stiles as though Stiles might’ve been hit in the head with a brick.  “Are you stupid or just suicidal?” he growls, words edged with cruelty.  “Your friend?  He just threw himself off a cliff to keep you safe.  He knew he couldn’t control himself, that he’d bite you  _or worse_ , and he was willing to die rather than let that happen and you’re going to undo all of it but running after him?”

Stiles steps close, snarls into Derek’s face, “What am I supposed to do then?  Just leave him out there on his own?”

Derek shakes his head.  “He has your scent—the shirt you gave him.  He’ll find you if he wants to be found.”

Stiles snorts.  If there’s one thing in this world he knows, it’s Whit.  If Whit’s already tried to hurt him once, he’ll never believe he won’t do it again.  He’ll stay away in the interest of not risking any harm befalling Stiles.  He’ll never know if he’s safe to be around because he’ll never try again.  It could never be worth the risk for him.  “I’m not abandoning him.  You go west, I’m going after Whit.”

Derek’s face falls but he rallies quickly.  “You don’t know he isn’t going west,” he points out.

That’s true.  Stiles has no idea what direction Whit might have gone in and if they really do use ‘scents’ like Derek said, well.  It could be useful to stick by him.

“You can look for him along the way,” Derek says, arguing against a point Stiles hasn’t even raised.

Stiles feels the fight go out of him.  He’s just so tired, so sick of not knowing what to do.  He dips his chin in concession, squints up at Derek.  “Why west?  If you don’t know anything outside the Alpha territory then why do you want to go west?”  It’s irked him since Derek let slip that he didn’t remember anything from before the Facility.

Derek’s expression goes shadowed and Stiles feels something like warning trip up his spine.

“Derek?  Tell me.”

“You’ll think I’m insane.”

Stiles’ lips twitch up weakly.  “I already think that,” he jokes half-heartedly.  “Seriously, you’re a half-man/half-wolf.  A Lycanella?”  He thinks that’s right.  Derek nods.  Stiles mirrors it.  “What’s crazier than that?”

Derek swallows, darts a quick glance at Stiles’ open face and murmurs, “Before the doors all unlocked and sprang open, there was a voice.”

“What kind of voice?” Stiles prods when Derek doesn’t look like he’s going to continue.

Derek clenches his jaw.  “A voice in my head, but I could tell the others were hearing it too,” he adds defensively.

“What did it say?” Stiles asks, trying to sound supportive.  He has no idea if he believes any of this, but he’s still not sure he believes in wolf/man hybrids and he’s seen those with his own eyes.

“She said, ‘ _you have to go west now_.’”

“She?”

Derek nods.  “It repeats about once every hour.  ‘You have to go west now.’”

“So,” Stiles starts uneasily, “we’re trusting a voice in your head?”  Well.  He supposes that’s his lot thrown in—saying  _we_.

Derek growls before he can catch it.  “She wouldn’t lie,” he hisses, strangely defensive of the disembodied voice in his head of a girl he’s never met—a girl who may not even exist.  “I trust her.  Her voice is soft, calming and she’s telling me what I’m  _supposed_  to do, I know it.”

“This could be a trap,” Stiles can’t help but point out.  He at least wants Derek to  _know_  that much.

“It isn’t,” he snarls.

“Fine,” Stiles agrees even though he doesn’t.  He crosses his arms over his chest, beyond tired, his papá’s note burning a hole in his pocket and Whit’s slight teeth marks stinging in his wrist, his jeans soaked in the blood of something he hadn’t even believed in that morning.

Derek swallows uncertainly, steps close and says—eyes fixed on Stiles’, “I want you to come with me.”

Stiles fights a frown.  He wants to ask why but he’s not sure there’s an answer Derek can give that’ll satisfy him.  He doesn’t know what to do.  He’s never felt so alone.  Or so lost.  He looks into Derek’s face, sees determination and care, and says:

“ _Okay_.”

* * *

**end pt. 1**

**Author's Note:**

> I don't... really know. I'm so tired, I just hope this all makes sense and is even a little bit entertaining. Also, I have a [tumblr](http://wellhalesbells.tumblr.com/), because I'm a cool kid.


End file.
